My Cemetery Blog

St Raymonds Parish manages St. Raymonds Cemetery instead of the Archdiocese of NY. This parish has defended its cemetery staff despite poor management of this cemetery as evidenced by many news stories by news12 the Bronx.

I contacted the Archdiocese of NY about 6 months ago and I wrote them a letter and included all documents to proof there is something wrong with the cemetery operations. I presented the altered title burial deed, the photo of the gravestone with the cemetery sticker and the original unchanged gravestone data on the incorrect site.

The archdiocese of NY has designed a parish reorganization plan announced for this year. In addition, many cemetery grounds keepers were fired in February 2012. Ten workers were fired all of a sudden, could it be the youtube video I found of some workers acting vulgar near the gravestones or the fact that I have exposed this huge mistake all over the web. At least some heads are rolling, I hope that the cemetery reflects and changes the poor methods of how the families are treated by their facility. The cemetery staff is nice once they get the families to purchase the burial plots but when a mistake occurs they will not take responsibility. The staff will deny and alter their records to present in court . The cemetery is an institution in the Bronx with friends at Bronx Courthouse.

The reason I stand by my words is that my sister took them to court despite all of the evidence presented such as the photos of the gravestone, the altered title deed, the letter from St Anselms church stating another maria cruz had funeral there, not my mom. The forged signature of my sisters name on their cpu form (cemetery plot unit), the manufactured cemetery receipt that we never received. The fact that this judge showed no interest in this case from beginning, she missed two court dates and on the October 31st court date, the court placed no appea next to comment box. This states no appearance, I contacted the courthouse to tell them that we were in court. This is key date because we bought in credit card receipt to prove that we did not pay by check as claimed on fake cemetery receipt. The first response was that the judges decision was not based on that; after not getting proper explanation, I contacted Court adminstration.

Their explanation was that the judges denial of motion was not based on the comment no appea, they claim that the judge had already fully submitted the case on November 14th 2011 after supposedly agreeing with both of the attornies that if they did not come to an agreement that she would decide on evidence. The judges decision took ten months for a judicial intervention that did not involve damages. We were suing to be made whole, by getting back money for the opening of the burial plot to find our mother.

After ten months of waiting and case being neglected by the attorney, we had working on it. I called the judge's clerk office and I inquired about the case, she seemed annoyed . I called from Florida and the clerk told me that the judge had not made a decision, this was on March 14, 2012. I have my phone log to prove it from my phone bill. The next day March 15th 2012. I found out on unified court system that the judge denied the case without prejudice with the chance to renew the case with the proper paperwork and she dated the decision as march 12th 2012.

My sister picked up the motion papers on march 21st 2012, we had been contacting the attorney in our case. He abandoned the case and never notified us of the decision, nor did he return our calls. We thought it was strange that he would not contact us especially since the time frame to renew a case was about 10 days. The first step in an appeal was to do the renewal request. This was to be done within a limited time frame. The attorney sent us an email dated March19th 2012 that stated that he spoke to the judge and that she said she didn't make a decision on case, even though we had the motion papers in our hands.

All of these documents are on my photo gallery. I will label each and I hope to get the help of an investigative journalist. The Bronx court has had a history of corruption, I found on the judicial review committee past cases dating from 1981 to present with most recent case of Hon. Lee Holtzman who allowed an attorney to steal 300,000 from estates in probate and allowed for this attorney, Lipmann to repay this money in installments since they were friends; instead of reporting him.

In my opinion this judge made decision out of anger instead of evidence. Somehow the attorney disappeared on us so that we could lose our chance to renew and appeal decision. Was he told to disappear, I don't know. I do know that it took filing an attorney greivance to get the lawyer to respond and when he did, instead of renewing documents in April 2012. The attorney got around to creating court documents on July 14th 2012, months after the time frame. The court document was poorly prepared and we sent this document to the attorney greivance committee since the attorney replied to complaint.

This case is big and I have gotten some media attention but no one has followed up. I contacted NY1 again and Bxnews 12 and both have not responded.

Basically this story has been forgotten, ignored and swept under the bed. The lack of interest and the apathy of local city agencies and government resources has caused for this story to go unnoticed. An entire cemetery row in the Holy Cross has been changed, our family is not the only affected and I believe that St Raymonds is covering mistake because they can't afford for truth to come out. Our family will keep on fighting.

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All of my relatives on my father's side (Donohue) are buried at St. raymond's. There were only two spaces left in the original Donohue double plot in section 11 before my parents passed. My parents told us that they wanted to be buried there. When my mom passed, the St Raymond's office called us at the funeral home during her wake, and tried to convince my sister that we needed to buy a new plot. HUH? The funeral home had already shown our deed, and it was arranged that the plot would be open and ready for her. My sister told them we'd see them in court and they hung up. They denied they ever made the call. This has always left me with a bad feeling. When I went to the office with my Dad to try and get to the bottom of this very disturbing call, they again denied ever making the call. Well, of course I don't believe them. What they went on was a fishing expedition; let's call the grieving family and get them to pay AGAIn for their plot. It didn't work, so they want us to forget about it. But it just solidifies in my mind why I want NO PART of this whole ugly business of dying. My husband and I will be cremated; our ashes will be scattered, and horrible vultures like St Raymond's won't be getting one cent!!! BTW, we did bury my dad in that last place. TRhey weren't as rude the last time around, but my impression of them is unchanged.

I am sorry for the bad experience you had with this St Raymond's cemetery, the truth is that this cemetery has mismanagement issues and the staff doesn't care for the families that have lost family. It took me months to write again in this blog because my dad was very ill after heart surgery. Our mother is still misplaced from original burial certificate, our family has a plot for three spaces but this staff is so rotten, I wouldn't put it past them to deny it. Thank you for sharing your story with me, I plan to add these stories to get attention to the problem in St Raymond's. I am convinced that there are serious problems in this cemetery and we need to get the state attorney general's office to investigate but we need a lot more stories from victims of St Raymond's cemetery to tell their stories , there is strength in numbers.

Barbara says...All of my relatives on my father's side (Donohue) are buried at St. raymond's. There were only two spaces left in the original Donohue double plot in section 11 before my parents passed. My parents told us that they wanted to be buried there. When my mom passed, the St Raymond's office called us at the funeral home during her wake, and tried to convince my sister that we needed to buy a new plot. HUH? The funeral home had already shown our deed, and it was arranged that the plot would be open and ready for her. My sister told them we'd see them in court and they hung up. They denied they ever made the call. This has always left me with a bad feeling. When I went to the office with my Dad to try and get to the bottom of this very disturbing call, they again denied ever making the call. Well, of course I don't believe them. What they went on was a fishing expedition; let's call the grieving family and get them to pay AGAIn for their plot. It didn't work, so they want us to forget about it. But it just solidifies in my mind why I want NO PART of this whole ugly business of dying. My husband and I will be cremated; our ashes will be scattered, and horrible vultures like St Raymond's won't be getting one cent!!! BTW, we did bury my dad in that last place. TRhey weren't as rude the last time around, but my impression of them is unchanged.